Deep in the Bering Sea off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, the U.S. and Russia share fishing waters that are home to this nation’s supply of king and snow crab. Predictably, the relationship is contentious. While the two nations compete for room on your plate, the deck is stacked against Alaskan fisheries thanks to cheaper imported product and illegal crab. Despite the economics, the Alaskan crab industry, made famous by The Discovery Channel’s hit show Deadliest Catch, fights for quality and sustainability in a competitive, and sometimes sketchy, global market.

Alaska’s modern fishing industry accounts for nearly 60% of America’s seafood, and today's sustainability practices stem from the Alaskan constitution, written in 1959. But the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act marked the first significant shift in the regulation of our modern seafood, starting with redefining our fishing boundaries.

“Magnuson-Stevens expanded our coast from three to 200 miles offshore," says Tyson Fick, Executive Director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. “We decided we were tired of foreign fleets fishing off our shore, and we said, ‘You know what’? Those are our fish.’ We stepped up and claimed it.”

2005 was another year of sweeping changes. Magnuson-Stevens implemented a catch-share program, reducing the number of crab-fishing boats from three hundred to about eighty. The drastic cut sounds harsh, but crabbing was dangerous, even by today’s standards. Excellent seamen competed with less experienced captains commanding inadequate vessels in a race to catch crab regardless of the weather. People died. Crowded ports meant the catch was stretched thin and few were making decent money. Talented captains were falling into debt.

Another issue was the threat of overfishing. The state and federal government collaborated with the crabbing industry to revise catch quotas to assure long-term sustainability, which require costly scientific stock assessments to determine the total allowable catch (TAC), or quota. Custom equipped boats trawl thousands of square miles of ocean floor to collect and count species samples. The data is applied to population models which approximates the total stock, and from there a quota is set.

This research is partially funded through a symbiotic relationship between the Department of Fish and Game and National Marine Fishery and the Alaskan fishing industry called “cost recovery.” Fisheries bid on government contracts to harvest and process crab, the profits of which are reinvested into stock assessments. The industry-generated Bering Sea Fisheries Research Foundation performs additional conservation efforts and closes gaps in government efforts.

Coreyfishes.com

A crabber aboard the Jennifer A throws the hook for a crab pot. —Corey Arnold

Tight quotas may be necessary, but they don’t make happy crabbers. Industry meetings can be salty when the TAC is low, and everyone has their opinions on what’s sustainable. Bad news from the scientists often means processors shut down, fewer jobs are available, and belts tighten. Ultimately, the community accepts the reality that to assure a crop in ten years, you need to leave some crab in the water.

“The National Marine Fisheries and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game do amazing work, but we have our complaints,” explains Captain Keith Colburn, a talented and outspoken star of Deadliest Catch. “Last year they left 35 million pounds of Bairdi snow crab on the bottom. They didn’t give us a season. There can be push and shove between industry and scientists sometimes.”

When it comes to Russian crab, our boys have a bone to pick. While science tells us to pull back on TAC, Russian quotas recently spiked 16% for Snow crab and 27% for King. Numbers suggest that pirate crabbing from Russian boats is greater than the entire legal trade in the United States. Figuring this out doesn’t require counter-intelligence, collusion, or fake news, according to Fick. Compare Russia’s published quotas with trade data of crab entering markets, and the math is suspect.

“It’s interesting that the reported reduction in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) crabbing in recent years met a nearly equal increase in the published legal quota,” Fick says. “We work to protect the ocean and promote a safe work environment. Then we’re forced to compete on a world stage with Russian fisheries whose legal standards are well below ours, and that doesn’t even address the illegal crab. It bums me out.”

Slowly, things are improving. The success of Deadliest Catch didn’t only make sea crabbers famous; it helped create awareness which gained them access to Washington lawmakers they previously never had. In December 2016, President Obama signed an executive order requiring traceability of problematic species like King crab down to the boat from which it was harvested. The deep dive is intended to catch false labeling, a common method of sneaking illegal crab into the states. When President Trump took office with an anti-regulation agenda, the industry braced itself for a rollback, but the new administration honored the rule, which took effect January 18.

If you eat seafood, there is plenty you can do to support Alaskan fisheries. Markets and restaurants who pay more for Alaskan will usually tell you; if you don’t see it, ask. On your plate, the highest quality crab’s “meat fill” is packed out to the shell. If it’s rattling around or overly salty, there’s a chance that crab was fished out of season and possibly illegal. While the Alaskan crab fisheries continue to set a global standard for sustainability, the Alaskan crab community remains committed to the cause even if it means their crab is a few dollars more.

“Whether you are cutting down trees or catching fish, if you have an open season all the time, it’s a race to the bottom,” says Captain Coburn. “There isn’t a fisherman out here who will say they’ll take the last crab. All of them will leave a crab so we can fish next year.”